Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
